January 2002, a group of Israeli reserve officers and combat soldiers
returned from their duty in the Gaza strip, and drafted a letter that would
change they way Israelis conceive the military control of the occupied
territories. This document came to be known as the Combatant's Letter.

Rather than striving for a moral, legal and legally innovative Israeli approach, with the help of a lenient and obfuscating interpretation of the "patently illegal order" the approach has become one that sanctions practically anything and, for the reasons listed above, delineates for soldiers extremely broad limits of what is permitted to them.

Following the news that the Israeli theaters Habima and Kameri intend to stage plays in the settlement of Ariel, Courage to Refuse called theater professionals to refuse to work in the occupied territories.

"Vengeance is not a mode of operation," wrote activists of the Courage to Refuse movement on the war's 12th day. Even if they are right, there is no doubt that the feeling of vengeance is a uniting force among the protesters.